14 August 2017 | Kohala Mountains, Hawaii

Daughter’s boyfriend, an archaeologist, wanted to visit the Mo’okini heiau, which is a sacred ceremonial site, probably used for human sacrifice. It dates from the 5th century and is one of the oldest sites in the Hawaiian Islands.

13 August 2017 | Volcano National Park, Hawaii

We went up the road from Pohoiki on the south coast to rendezvous with my two brothers, then continued on the main highway to Kea'au, then turned left up the mountain. The road goes up the north shoulder of Mauna Loa, considered the largest mountain in the world based on mass. On its flank is Kilaeua, [...]

13 August 2017 | Kalapana, Ka'u, Hawaii

Here is a link to an album on flickr of photos taken on the road to Kapoho, then to Pohoiki, then to Kalapana, back to Pohoiki to board a boat for lava viewing where the lava pours into the steaming ocean.

11 August 2017 | Kalapana, Hawaii

Our stay at Kahala came to a close and we flew to Hilo on the Big Island. Here I had two brothers and a sister and their families. Here my parents are buried, so it is also a pilgrimage to see their grave.

Canoe Hanging

14 April 2017 | St. Marys, GA

Capn Andy/Warm Spring

It was time to start work on the topsides and see if I could tint the arctic white to a light blue. An approximate calculation of the surface area of the hull side is about 165 sq ft to one side. Times 4 it is 660 sq ft to be painted. This does not include the bottom paint below the waterline. With 1 quart covering 100 sq ft, it comes out to 6.6 quarts, 13.2 for coverage of 2 coats. So that’s 3 gallons of paint and a bit. I mix paint in small batches that cover about 20 sq ft. I don’t have to calculate how much paint I need for an area, just keep mixing the two part paint in little batches and apply it till there is less than 20 sq ft left to be painted. No wasted paint, no disasters with a large batch of paint being too much or going off too soon, leaving a container of solidifying paint.
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I needed to paint the dinette portlight bezel and some spots on the pilothouse, but it was less than 20 sq ft, so I had to come up with more arctic white paint projects. The two hatches on the forward storage compartments were very rough looking. I was going to make new ones later, after the boat was relaunched, so I had left them as they were. They would be good candidates for repainting. Plus, they were each about 4 sq ft. That’s 16 square feet painting top and bottom of both hatches. Perfect.
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I ran over them with the belt sander, angle grinder with flap disk, and palm sander with 3M gold 150 grit stick-on paper. They needed some epoxy repair to glue the sheathing where it had come loose around the edges, and some filling where the wood had gone soft.
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There was another epoxy job to do. The crossbeams for the outrigger canoe were showing voids in the laminations. Although the laminations were glued strongly, gaps had to be filled.
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Setting up the canoe on its sawhorses resulted in it tumbling off, it was too unstable and too high to comfortably work on. I got an idea to suspend the canoe on tie down straps that hang from the top bar of the sawhorses. The ends of the canoe would fit inside the sawhorses, it was just a matter of attaching one end of the strap to one end of the sawhorse bar, then run the canoe into the sawhorse part way, then pull the strap under the canoe, up to the other end of the bar, and adjust it so the canoe was up off the ground. Then the ends of the straps were permanently screwed to the sawhorse bar. After both ends of the canoe were suspended, the outrigger was similarly suspended, this time the sawhorse was right in the middle of the outrigger float (ama) and adjusted to hold it just at the right height. The photo is of this arrangement.
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The hiking seat was put on the outrigger crossarms and moved around while I sat on it in different positions. I didn’t come up with one that felt comfortable, so that part will have to be sussed out maybe after the canoe is in the water. It will be OK for paddling around, the hiking seat is only for when a sailing rig is installed. To my surprise, the hiking seat just happened to fit the aluminum scaffold I had been using. I had had a piece of plywood on it with pieces of 2X4 to try to keep it from wobbling. It didn’t work and I injured my knee as a result a few weeks back. Now I can use the hiking seat on the scaffold while I work on the topsides.